Anyone else noticed excessive cable wear?

Stanpipe

Active member
Jun 12, 2020
81
80
Isle of Wight - UK
Recent visit to Rogate and my rear brake gave in. Lever to bar and no braking. Luckily was the last run anyway. Once home I ran through the usual checks - pads, bleeding, etc. On the bleeding I noticed that oil was coming out of the chainstay where the cable is routed. I dropped the motor out and disconnected the calliper (had to cut cable as banjo at calliper end and knew was gonna replace anyway). The hose had split right on the exit from chainstay where the cable bends. I have since pulled through the gear cable while motor is out and the outer is also worn through all plastic to metal sheathing. I had to have a speed sensor cable replaced under warranty earlier this year due to speed sensor error and this has now got me thinking that perhaps it was also affected by the frame design or lack of cable protection in/out of frame. Cable's were routed cleanly inside frame (no crossing of brake/gears).
Anyone else experience anything similar? Guess what I’m trying to say is check all your cables whilst the motor is out.
Mine’s a 2020 Rail 9.
 

Hob Nob

Active member
Jun 4, 2020
152
149
UK
From experience, I would say it stems from the atrocious cable routing, full stop.

There are a few things to consider - looking from the backend of the bike at the motor, the factory cable routing has the gear cable coming out of the non drive side, and the rear brake hose coming out of the drive side, which is ridiculous .

If you couple that with the routing the cables have to take over & around the back of the motor, it's generally unpleasant. The gear cable eats through the outer & shifts like crap & both the cables had significantly cut through the exit 'ports' when the suspension compressed. I had to re-route them the more obvious, direct way & whilst it was a total pain the arse to do, it did improve things. I actually used some Sugru to make a couple of port bungs to stop the cables moving more and cutting into the frame.

Turns out that when my bike was built also, they must have pinched the controller cable when trying to fit the motor, along with a cats cradle of wiring in a very specific place as that died, when I removed the OE brakes it was obvious the brake hose had been crushed as well (flat spot) and was starting to weep fluid.
 

dixie600mhz

Active member
Oct 13, 2020
174
159
Austin, Texas
My derailleur cable just started binding right at the cross over exit at the chainstay. Sticking shifts and super stiff to override the internal snag. I guess I'm dropping the motor this weekend, installing a new cable and doing a re-route to try to get rid of some bends.
motor_out.jpg

cable_routing.jpg

cables.jpg
 
Last edited:

dixie600mhz

Active member
Oct 13, 2020
174
159
Austin, Texas
Just in case it helps anyone else. I installed a new Jagwire Elite sealed derailleur cable and rerouted to avoid the cross over at the chainstay. The shift pressure required to switch gears is about 10x lighter than it was compared to when the bike was new. The shift pressure with the XT setup feels as light now as the SRAMs feel, but the Shimano actually never misses a shift. Really happy I spent the time installing the better cable.
 

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